


Every Man, an Island

by superdeath



Series: Every Man, An Island [1]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Abuse, Platonic Kissing, Scars, Stitches, one awkward kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 19:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16226222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superdeath/pseuds/superdeath
Summary: "It’s the first time he’s been tasked with stitching up the older man. Usually Sully would go to local trusted contacts with a modicum of medical training. Or just do it himself. But the small Sicilian town they’ve found themselves in for their current job is abuzz with the local mafia, on high alert after an admittedly sloppy getaway."Set early on during Nate and Sully's partnership, a moment where both continue to navigate the oceans of each other.





	Every Man, an Island

**Author's Note:**

> This could be read as gen or as a pairing, so I included tags for both, just in case.

It’s so hot in the small hotel room they’ve holed up in that it’s the sweat on Sully’s skin making Nate’s fingers twitch and slip, not his nerves. At least, that’s what he keeps telling himself as he pinches blood dried skin together, the needle glinting in the pale yellow light of the bedside lamp.

It’s the first time he’s been tasked with stitching up the older man. Usually Sully would go to local trusted contacts with a modicum of medical training. Or just do it himself. But the small Sicilian town they’ve found themselves in for their current job is abuzz with the local mafia, on high alert after an admittedly sloppy getaway. 

Nate had gotten cocky, Nate had leapt before looking, and now Sully has a gash just wide enough over his shoulder blade to need stitches.

Sully sits backwards on a rickety chair, shirtless, with his elbows resting on the top rail. He’s quiet and doesn't seem to notice Nate’s hesitation. In fact, he’s making it a bit hard for Nate to keep the stitches straight, as he flips through some documents they had managed to pocket before the heist went south. 

Nate can’t decide if he feels like he is being scolded or not by the pointed silence. He can’t decide if he wants to be scolded.

“Hey,” he says instead, exasperated, “Keep still. I can’t do this with all your sweat and hair in the way, as is.”

Sully stills, the papers crinkling in his hands, before pointedly relaxing his shoulders. Nate keeps his attention on the thread and needle, starts again to poke into Sully’s flesh. He’s still waiting for Sully to say something about how he messed up, how he won’t get another chance, how he’ll leave him behind — 

“How you doing back there, kid?” Sully’s voice doesn’t sound angry, or even annoyed. For some reason, _that_ makes Nate flush with embarrassment.

“I’m doing _just great_ ,” He mutters, embarrassment turning into a small flame of annoyance. At the final stitch, a burst of pettiness makes Nate tug the last bit closed roughly, and Sully hisses. 

“ _Just great_ , huh?” The older man makes to turn around, but Nate doesn’t want Sully to look at him, to gauge his emotions. He’s not sure what his own face is doing at the moment, not even sure what emotions _are_ there to show. He’s afraid he’s close to crying. 

Instead Nate presses his hands hard onto both of Sully’s shoulders, stopping him. 

A few moments tic by, the old lightbulb in the bedside lamp humming softly. All Nate needs is a minute to collect himself, just needs the right gruff joke from Sully to dissipate the sick sour feeling in his chest, just the right quip to dissipate whatever mood has washed over him.

Unfortunately, it seems they both have nothing to say for once, and Nate finds himself hyper focused on the black stitch-work pulling red and ugly on Sully’s skin. 

His eyes follow the curve of it, a jagged compass arrow, and beyond. Across Sully’s back is a sea of freckles that speak of hours shirtless in the sun, the high red of sunburn wrapped around the paler afterimage of Sully’s usual tank top and Havana shirt combo. There are gashes of white throughout, older scars smoothing out the fine wrinkles, cancelling out moles and freckles. Lots of them.

Without realizing, Nate finds his hands skating down, thumb catching on a spray of puckered indents wrapped around the right side of Sully’s flank.

The movement makes Sully squirm a little, clearing his throat. Nate can feel the muscles tense in preparation to turn again, so he cuts him off with the first inane thought he has, “You’ve got a lot of scars here.”

Sully shifts, but something in Nate’s voice, and in the hard press of the kid’s small fingertips framing the raised scars crisscrossed over the edge of his belt loop, holds him in place again.

“Yeah,” Sully chuckles, “most stabbings are in the back.” 

_You’ll have your share of them soon, too_ , Sully thinks to himself, darkly, uncomfortably. The idea pulls his mouth into a small frown.

Nate takes Sully’s chuckle as the small allowance that it is, a permission to explore what Nate had already began to chart on his own. 

There’s a line of equidistant half circles traveling down from Sully’s left shoulder, almost imperceptible, but Nate can feel them as he trails his fingers from the top of Sully’s shoulders again, using the silver chain nestled in the fold of his neck as his starting point, “What are these from?”

Sully takes a moment, trying to remember what Nate’s fingers are tracing, “Um, think that one was a chain,” Nate’s fingers twitch, “Probably on a ship somewhere.”

“Somebody whipped you with a chain?” 

Sully chuckles at the incredulity, “Sorry, no. Probably was being a dumbass on deck. I wasn’t too smart when I was in the Navy.”

“Only then?” Nate retorts automatically, then with the same degree of incredulity as asking if Sully regularly fought in vicious chain brawls, “You were in the Navy?”

“I was. What? Don’t I look like a sailor?” 

“Well, it explains the tattoos…and the mustache.”

Nate’s answer is flippant, but Sully can practically feel the kid analyzing that information for later in the tacky, hot press of the boy’s fingers against his skin.

Another piece of the puzzle for Nate to contextualize this man who took him in, who treats him like a partner as much as a protégé, who landed him in prison merely a year after meeting him — who can’t decide how stupid and selfish he’s being by not letting him go. 

Sully can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable about it.

The more you give to someone, the more they can use it against you. The more you have, the more people can take. That’s par for the course in the life he has led, and old habits die hard.

It isn’t that he intends to hide anything from Nate, but a cold, slumbering part of him has come to realize that mystery is magnetic. _Especially_ for Nate. And in this way he can keep the boy —

Sully doesn’t like thinking about it too much. Thankfully, Nate distracts him, moving on to a few more old wounds.

The speckled, cratered section on his right flank: “Shot at by Somali pirates.”

The discolored patch of skin across the left side of his rib cage: “Running away from a giant boulder.” 

“You’re lying.” Nate laughs.

The finger length, perfectly vertical line punctured into his lower lumbar: “Stabbed by a ninja assassin.” 

“That’s cool,” Nate breathes, and Sully smiles. He’d believe that one and not an ancient lever puzzle gone wrong?

Nate’s hands return down to the small of Sully’s back, again to the mass of raised welts thicker and more tactile than the rest, “And these?”

Sully pauses, on the precipice of another embellished tale, but he flounders on coming up with anything quick enough.

“My old man,” Sully states simply. Just saying it makes him want a cigar. 

Nate can feel the tone shift like a drop in temperature, and he knows he won’t be able to keep Sully sitting down like the first couple of times when all the signs pointed to stop. As usual he pushed too far, never knows when to let up, always has to go farther. But he doesn’t want this to be the defining moment of this strange, warm experience. 

Nate feels time running out, so he steps forward, presses his forehead into the back of Sully’s neck, and softly presses his lips on the top most edge of the stitches he’d just roughly knotted off.

It’s a quick kiss, and Sully only has a few moments feeling the rabbit-fast heart beating against his spine before Nate disconnects. The space feels cold with the absence, and that is what Sully notices the most, not the fumbled kiss meant to be a myriad of things or nothing at all.

“Let’s see how you did,” he says, finally out of the chair and walking to the small bathroom without looking at Nate. 

The overhead light crackles on after a three second strobe show, and Sully sees himself in the mirror, sees Nate like a little ghost with his arms wrapped tight against his chest, staring at the back of Sully’s head like it’ll disappear if he looked away.

Sully turns, peering over his shoulder and straining his neck to inspect the stitches which created this whole situation reflected in the cracked surface.

“A kiss to make it all better, huh?” Sully offers, trying to sound as much at ease as possible. It’s an explanation they can agree on — a tacit, and safe meaning, “I see why you’d need the extra touch.”

Nate responds whip quick as usual.

“With your luck,” Nate says, and smiles, “you need all the help you can get.”


End file.
